The economy in Crawley

Crawley, one of the UK's most resilient and strongest performing city economies, ranks in the top ten for the number of patent registrations and the highest for employment of the city economies in the UK.

• Crawley's three key employments areas and economic drivers are the Town Centre, Manor Royal Business District and London Gatwick Airport
• The borough has more than 3,400 active businesses, including a diverse range of world-leading occupiers: Virgin, Nestle, Elekta, Doosan, L3 Commercial Training Solutions, Kier Construction, Tesler, Harwood Jaguar Land Rover, Varian, Thales, PwC and OCS
• Business birth rate was 13.3% in 2021 and death rate, 11.1%
• Crawley's job density grew from 85,000 in 2015 to 90,000 in 2021, with the main employment sectors being transportation and storage and administrative and support services, with a cluster of professional services found in the town centre
• Specialist sectors include aerospace or aviation, health and life sciences or medical technology and advance manufacturing

In 2020, Crawley's total Gross Value Added (GVA) was £4.959 billion, equivalent to £44,090 per head of population, accounting for 22% of West Sussex County's total GVA. 

There are still opportunities for development, investment and expansion in the town. A surge in uptake of commercial premises has led to an urgent need for more, with opportunity sites looking for residential and mixed-use in the town centre and business-uses in Manor Royal.